Buckle up for a wild weekend before the NCAA Tournament bracket is officially revealed on Sunday.
It’s a two-team race for the final No.1 seed with Purdue, UConn, and Houston locking up the first three spots.
Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arizona have been the three main teams in the race, though it’s turned into a two-team competition between Tennessee and North Carona after Arizona’s loss to unranked Southern Cal in the regular-season finale.
Entering conference tournament week, ESPN bracketology expert Joe Lunardi has had Tennessee as the final one-seed with North Carolina on the two-line. The projections weren’t set in stone with a close race between the Tar Heels and the Vols, leading to an incredibly important conference tournament week.
North Carolina, the one-seed in the ACC tournament, dominated nine-seed Florida State in the quarterfinal round on Thursday by a score of 92-67. The Tar Heels’ win is good for a Quad 2 win.
Tennessee, meanwhile, will play their first SEC Tournament game on Friday in the quarterfinals against nine-seed Mississippi State. The ACC Tournament starts and ends one day earlier than the SEC Tournament, which is why the Tar Heels played their quarterfinal game before the Vols.
With North Carolina’s win against Florida State, Joe Lunardi has moved North Carolina up to the one-seed with Tennessee sliding down to the two-seed. Lunardi’s update came via a social media post as the bracketology analyst also added an important note:
“UNC and Tennessee begin a game of hop-scotch.”
UNC and Tennessee begin a game of hop-scotch. pic.twitter.com/mN23p4gtm3
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) March 15, 2024
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North Carolina posts an 8-3 Quad 1 record with wins over Tennessee, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Clemson, NC State, Duke (x2), and Virginia. The Tar Heels are now 7-3 in Quad 2 games with the addition of their win over Florida State on Thursday. North Carolina is undefeated (11-0) against Quad 3 and Quad 4 teams.
Tennessee, on the other hand, has a 7-6 record against Quad 1 teams. After an early season tough stretch that saw losses to Purdue, Kansas, and UNC – all Quad 1 losses – the Vols boast Quad 1 wins against Wisconsin, Illinois, Alabama (x2), Kentucky, Auburn, and South Carolina. Tennessee is 6-1 against Quad 2 teams and is also a perfect 11-0 against Quad 3 and Quad 4 teams combined.
Lunardi’s update shows that each conference tournament game will prove vital for both Tennessee and North Carolina as the respective one-seeds of each bracket. The Vols and the Tar Heels will have Quad 1 win opportunities on Friday as Tennessee takes on Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament quarterfinal and North Carolina takes on Pitt in the ACC Tournament semifinal.
2 Responses
VOLS cannot win 3 games in a row and lose to KY.
Hey folks, remember, Joe Lunardi is just a talking head who each year gets paid to make predictions and show up many times on ESPN to provide prognostications. But he is not on the selection committee. He is just like the top 25 polls in football, they were originally created to help sell newspapers for those of you not old enough to know about this. Joe is selling clicks. His selection guesses are fun to read about, but the committee has the final say.
The even more funny thing is after the committee is finished with selections, then ESPN, pays Joe to tell everyone where the committee was wrong. What a great job to have that he managed to create for himself.
So don’t panic when reading his guesses.